Part 16 of chopin-pianist-and-teacher-as-seen-by-his-pupils (pp. 351-368).
Question this unit answers
None, in the discursive sense. This unit is the closing stretch of Appendix III and consists almost entirely of engraved music examples — scores reproduced with Chopin’s fingerings, arpeggiation signs, dynamics and other annotations transcribed from pupils’ copies. The PDF text layer for pp. 351-367 extracts only the editorial footnotes attached to those plates; there is no running prose to summarize. Appendix IV then begins on p. 368.
So the honest answer to “what question does this unit answer” is: which source score is each annotation on these plates taken from? — answered piecemeal, footnote by footnote.
Key terms
- Stirling score — the annotated copy belonging to Jane Stirling; the most frequently cited source for dynamics on these plates (pp. 352, 355, 357) and for signs of simultaneous attack (pp. 359, 362, 364).
- Jędrzejewicz score(s) — copies associated with Chopin’s sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz; source of added slurs, deleted accents, and from p. 366 onward the arpeggiation signs, note deletions and hairpin dynamics.
- Dubois score — Camille Dubois’s annotated copy, cited alongside Jędrzejewicz for a deletion of a printed accent (p. 357).
- Simultaneous attack — an annotation (drawn as a connecting line) marking that two notes, typically across the hands, are to be struck together rather than dislocated (pp. 359, 362, 364).
- Break of silence — a line-annotation in the Stirling score marking an intended silence/separation (p. 362).
- Arpeggiation sign — notation for spreading a chord, transcribed from the Jędrzejewicz scores (p. 366).
- Hairpin dynamics — the crescendo/diminuendo wedges, likewise taken from Jędrzejewicz (p. 366).
- Autograph — Chopin’s own manuscript, used as the dynamic authority on p. 366 in preference to the pupils’ copies.
Propositions
- Dynamic markings in these examples are not editorial inventions but readings of a specific pupil’s copy: repeatedly “Dynamics according to the Stirling score” (pp. 352, 355, 357).
- Chopin sometimes removed markings that the printed editions carried: an accent “printed in the first editions, is deleted in the Dubois and Jędrzejewicz scores” (p. 357) — evidence that pupil copies record subtraction as well as addition.
- Chopin annotated for coordination between the hands, not only for finger choice: lines in the Stirling score specify “simultaneous attack” (pp. 359, 364) and, in one case, “simultaneous attack with the l.h.” together with “a break of silence” (p. 362).
- Articulation was extended by hand: a “Slur added to the Stirling and Jędrzejewicz scores” (p. 362) shows phrasing marks entering through teaching copies.
- Where the autograph and the pupil copies both survive, Eigeldinger separates their authority: dynamics on p. 366 are given “according to the autograph”, while arpeggiation, note deletions and hairpins in the same passage follow “the annotations in the Jędrzejewicz scores”.
- Concordance across independent copies (Dubois and Jędrzejewicz agreeing on a deletion, p. 357; Stirling and Jędrzejewicz agreeing on a slur, p. 362) is treated as strengthening the claim that a marking is Chopin’s own rather than a pupil’s idiosyncrasy.
Arguments
There is no argument constructed in prose here. The argumentative work is implicit in the apparatus: every non-printed marking on the plates is sourced to a named copy, so the reader can distinguish (1) what the first editions printed, (2) what Chopin’s autograph gives, and (3) what a particular pupil’s score adds or deletes. The layered attribution is the argument — it is what licenses treating these fingerings and annotations as documentary evidence of Chopin’s teaching rather than as an editor’s performing edition.
Two ranking principles can be read off the footnotes:
- The autograph outranks the pupil copies for a category it covers (dynamics, p. 366).
- Agreement between two or more independent pupil copies is worth flagging explicitly (pp. 357, 362).
Evidence
The evidence is the plates: pp. 351-367 are continuous engraved music, presumably the later portion of the works whose annotated texts Appendix III reproduces. Because the pages are images of engraving, the extracted text consists solely of the eight footnotes on pp. 352, 355, 357, 359, 362, 364 and 366 quoted below. Nothing in the extractable text identifies which works these particular pages belong to; that would require reading the plate images themselves.
Page 367 is a blank/end page (the extraction picks up only an “OceanofPDF.com” watermark, an artifact of this digital copy, not part of the book).
Quotes
Verbatim footnotes, in page order. These are the complete extractable prose of pp. 351-367.
- “Dynamics according to the Stirling score.” (p. 352)
- “Dynamics according to the Stirling score.” (p. 355)
- “This accent, printed in the first editions, is deleted in the Dubois and Jędrzejewicz scores.” (p. 357)
- “Simultaneous attack indicated in the Stirling score.” (p. 359)
- “Annotation in the Jędrzejewicz score.” (p. 359)
- “Lines indicating respectively simultaneous attack with the l.h., and a break of silence, in the Stirling score.” (p. 362)
- “Slur added to the Stirling and Jędrzejewicz scores.” (p. 362)
- “Simultaneous attack specified in the Stirling score.” (p. 364)
- “Dynamics according to the autograph.” (p. 366)
- “From here on, arpeggiation signs, note deletions, hairpin dynamics, etc., follow the annotations in the Jędrzejewicz scores.” (p. 366)
From the opening of Appendix IV on p. 368, which sets up the next unit:
- “the teacher Chopin is indissolubly linked, after all, to the pianist, simply reflecting the latter in the didactic medium” (p. 368)
- “The quotations are grouped under four headings, according to the categories (often flexible) to which their authors belong: Composers and Pianists; Pupils; Associates; Music Critics.” (p. 368)
- “Despite their diversity of date and origin, many of these accounts exhibit remarkable concordances, contributing generally towards a unified impression.” (p. 368)
- “Here, however, the aim is purely descriptive; the texts are left to speak for themselves and for one another.” (p. 368)
Tensions and links
- Autograph vs. pupil copy. On p. 366 the two are used for different categories in the same passage. The tension is unresolved by the footnote: if the autograph’s dynamics are preferred, why are the Jędrzejewicz dynamics (hairpins) admitted immediately alongside? Plausibly the autograph covers the earlier bars and Jędrzejewicz the later, but the extracted text does not say.
- Addition vs. deletion. The p. 357 footnote is the interesting case for the book’s larger thesis: a teaching copy that cancels a printed accent implies Chopin revised his own published intentions in the studio, which is a stronger claim than “he supplied extra fingerings.”
- Continuity with Part 15. This is the tail of the same appendix; the source sigla (Stirling, Dubois, Jędrzejewicz) and the editorial conventions were introduced earlier and are simply applied here.
- Forward link. Appendix IV pivots from notation to reception — from what Chopin wrote into scores to what listeners reported hearing. Its stated method (grouping witnesses by category, letting texts corroborate one another) mirrors the concordance logic used on these plates: multiple independent sources agreeing is the standard of proof throughout the book.
Open questions
- Appendix IV begins on p. 368, headed “Appendix IV: Chopin’s playing described by his contemporaries”. Only the introductory paragraph, the heading “Composers and pianists”, and the start of the Mendelssohn extract fall within this unit’s range; the Mendelssohn passage is cut mid-sentence at the page break and is left for the next unit.
- Which works do the plates on pp. 351-367 present? Not recoverable from the text layer — the plate images must be read directly.
- Does the “break of silence” line (p. 362) denote a rhythmic break, a pedal release, or a phrase-ending lift? The footnote does not define the sign; the earlier part of the appendix may.
- Are the Stirling dynamics on pp. 352, 355 and 357 in Chopin’s hand or Stirling’s? The footnote formula “according to the Stirling score” attributes to the document, not to a hand.
- Why does the Mendelssohn extract open Appendix IV, given he was never Chopin’s pupil? Presumably chronology within “Composers and pianists” rather than significance.